A football offensive line coach will often desire to drill the offensive line at the same time the quarterback coach desires to drill the quarterback. As a result, the linemen often must practice plays without the presence of the center. Similarly, the quarterback must often wait for the linemen to finish their drills before he can commence with his practice.
For these and other reasons, inventors have developed a number of mechanical devices intended to deliver a football to a quarterback.
For example, a hiking mechanism is shown in the following U.S. Pat. Nos.: 3,044,776 to Weidmaier et al.; 3,467,380 to Bonacci; 2,767,985 to Maxuey, Jr. et al.; 3,399,892 to Jurkiewicz; and 3,700,238 to Mathis. Other patents which show football training equipment but which do not show football centering devices are U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,940,757 to Britt and 2,521,649 to Paupa.
Some of the prior art devices are extraordinarily complex in structure and are thus expensive to manufacture.
Although the art is somewhat developed, a need remains for a device that is mechanically simple, and thus economical to manufacture. Moreover, there remains a need for a device that delivers a football to a quarterback in a manner that closely simulates the delivery by a human center.